The Circle Game
by Fourth Rose
Summary: When two people tell each other, "One year from today, we meet at the Reflecting Pool," then you have an idea how their story will end. But this is neither the end, nor the beginning; it's the convoluted middle of the story where there's confusion and heartbreak and maybe a little hope.
1. Chapter 1

When two people tell each other, "One year from today, we meet at the Reflecting Pool," then you have an idea how their story will end. A year from today, a man in Army fatigues will stand at the pool, his face worn and weary, but filled with hope, and he will look towards a woman approaching him, a woman with fair skin bronzed by a year under open skies. Her face will light up as she sees him, and she will quicken her pace, and he will start running, and they will meet halfway and embrace and cling to each other and laugh and cry and never let go. The camera will slowly zoom out, and you will know it's the end of the story because all happy stories end with a beginning.

But this is neither the end, nor the beginning, but the convoluted middle of the story, and the woman with fair skin and sun-bleached hair at the Reflecting Pool is looking towards a man in jeans and a blonde young woman approaching her. The man looks worn and weary, and his expression is tense, but he still smiles when he reaches the woman at the pool, and she smiles back and embraces him. He tells her he's happy to see her again, and he means it, and then he takes the hand of the blonde woman at his side and says, "Bones, I'd like you to meet Becky Richards, my fiancée."

* * *

It had been so easy to fall in love with her.

He didn't know how to deal with it, because nothing in Booth's life has ever been easy, but she pushed past his barriers with no more effort than it takes the rays of the sun to shine through the bars of a prison window. He felt like a deer caught in the headlights, but soon wanted nothing but to bask in her warmth and let her chase away the chill that's a constant ache in his heart. She's a journalist, freelancing around the world wherever there are stories to tell. She may have seen more death and destruction in her life than he has, but the stories she tells him have nothing to do with death, she's all life and laughter and dirty jokes that shock his Catholic sensibilities. She's brave – has to, if she made her way into this hellhole of a country – but not reckless, she listens when people tell her things, and she cares about the people whose stories she tells.

He was in love with her before he knew what was happening, and although training killers in the middle of a war left him hardly any time to spend with her, he felt more alive during those moments than he had in what felt like years. As the day drew closer when he was bound to go back to the life he had put on hold a year ago, he found that he couldn't imagine going without her. Two days before his flight back home, he asked her to come to DC with him and marry him. She laughed at him and called him a hopeless romantic, but she still said yes.

And now he's here, his heart in his throat, and watches Bones and Becky shake hands and smile politely at each other. He's nervous as hell, but Bones seems calm, if a little surprised. She still looks like the woman in his memory, a bit thinner maybe, but leaner too, her porcelain doll appearance hardened around the edges. He used to be able to read her quite well, but now he has no idea what she's thinking, and he feels a small pang of regret at the thought that she too may have changed beyond recognition during the past year. But then she smiles at him and tells him she's happy for him, and she sounds like she means it too, and Booth finds he can finally breathe again.

* * *

It's strange to settle back into what used to be his old life and yet feels so new. Booth cleared out his place when he left for Afghanistan, so he and Becky find an apartment that suits them for now – they're agreed that they'll look for a bigger, permanent home in a greener area once they have children. Becky wants them, but says there's no rush because she's only 31, and it will be a few years before the ticking of her biological clock becomes deafening. Booth too is content to wait, since a part of him is still busy catching up with everything that happened during the past year, but sometimes he looks at her and wonders what it will be like to see her holding their baby, and he has to kiss her right then and there because he's so happy that he doesn't know what to do with himself.

Things aren't quite so bright when she's away, which is often given her line of work. Booth has lived alone for years, and it never bothered him before, but now the silence in the apartment weighs down on him when she's not around, and he has trouble falling asleep at night when he doesn't feel her warmth next to him. She makes up for that when she's back, though – she's just as playful and affectionate in her lovemaking as she is with everything else she does, and Booth doesn't think he has ever laughed so much in bed with any other woman. Then again, there has never been so much laughter in his life at all as there is now, and sometimes he feels like stopping and pinching himself because he still can't quite believe it's all real.

He takes Becky with him when he goes to see Pops, and the old man is nice and polite towards her, although he doesn't fail to inform Booth she's all wrong for him the next time they talk on the phone. Booth takes it in stride, since Pops never liked any girl he brought home, so the world would probably tumble off its axis if he started now. Parker seems a little wary around her as well, but Booth knows that his absence must have been tough for the boy, and tries not to push too hard. Becky understands, and assures him his son will come around once he realizes that his dad doesn't love him any less because of the new woman in his life.

Afghanistan is still with him, but he's had a lot of practice in dealing with that kind of thing. Sometimes, when he's not on his guard, he finds himself thinking of all those boys – he can't think of them as men, God, was he ever that young? – he helped turn into more efficient killers, and he wonders how many of them will come back as messed up as he was, if not in caskets. He knows that it means more blood on his hands, even though he's no longer the one pulling the trigger, but the nightmares he used to have back then don't return. He isn't sure how he feels about that, whether it means he's finally losing his grip on humanity just like Sweets insinuated once, but there's no way he'd ever bring it up around that kid of a therapist who probably hasn't seen a spatter of blood in his life. He has it under control, he's sure of it – just like his hands no longer itch for a deck of cards to take his mind off the images in his memory. Perhaps it's because Becky is the biggest gamble he ever took, and now that he finally ended up winning he doesn't need the rush of the game any more.

* * *

Returning to his old job seems like the easiest part of all – they gave him back his old position at the Bureau (nothing like going to war for your country if you want your bosses to forgive you a year of absence, he thinks with just a tad of cynicism), Jeffersonian liaison included. The squints welcome him back without much fuss – Cam gives him a hug and tells him she's happy he's still in one piece ("You're getting too old for this kind of shit, Seeley"), Hodgins is busy reacquainting himself with his bugs after a year in Paris, where they obviously don't have them, and seems hardly aware that Booth was away at all. It's just Angela who gives him the silent treatment, but considering that she's in her last trimester and moves with the grace of a beached whale, he's willing to cut her a lot of slack because he still remembers how Rebecca went hormone-crazy during the last months of her pregnancy.

It's Bones, however, who really makes him believe that the fates are finally done taking shots at him. It's like they erased the last year of their partnership, when all that soul-baring and heartbreak left them reeling off center until they no longer knew how to deal with each other, how to hold on to their precious connection without clinging too tightly and leaving bruises. He can't help thinking that she was right to force them apart for a year – not only did it leave him with Becky, it also gave him back his partner, and it's only now that he can safely admit to himself just how desperately he missed her.

He's tense around her during their first new case, but she seems so comfortable with him that he soon finds himself relaxing. The painful awkwardness that used to poison each second they spent together before she left is gone, and they can once again talk and laugh and argue like they used to before he ruined it all by forcing his convoluted feelings on her. With that in mind, he holds himself a little apart at first, but after just a few weeks his hand is once more at the small of her back when they're walking side by side, and it's so natural that he doesn't even notice it for a while.

Two months after his return, they get into their first real squabble during a car ride back from a crime scene when Bones scoffs at his remark that his St. Christopher's medal kept him safe in yet another war. They end up bickering about the value of religion (or superstition, as she calls it) and the effectiveness of blessings and prayers until they're back in DC, and when he drops her off at the Jeffersonian, Booth feels truly normal again for the first time since he woke up from his coma. She's almost out of the car when she turns back and asks him whether Becky is religious, and he answers her truthfully that she isn't, but respects his beliefs as part of her general 'live and let live' approach that he likes so much about her. Bones smiles and tells him he's lucky to have her, and Booth thinks that right now he may indeed be the luckiest bastard to ever walk the earth.

He told Becky about Bones, of course – about the whole fucked-up mess that used to be their relationship, because not only has she a right to know, he _needs_ her to know and understand. She'd guessed half of it already when she jokingly asked him, back when they first sat down together for a drink, what kind of girl problems he was running away from since the reason behind a man his age going back to the Army could only be a woman. She'd clearly expected to hear about a divorce or a bad break-up, but she took his story in stride (and the fact that he was able to tell her was his first indication that he was falling for her, and falling hard). He wasn't quite sure how she would feel about the fact that he's working with Bones again, but she's fine with it – she tells him she understands the importance of partnership and friendship, and that she's glad he and Bones have worked out their issues. He feels humbled by her trust in him, and her easy acceptance of his messed-up past.

He had no idea what to expect of Bones' reaction to his wife-to-be, but it seems that she's genuinely happy to see him in a stable relationship. She doesn't mention Becky often – there are none of the prying questions she used to needle him with while he was dating Tessa or Catherine (he figures Cam was different, because he has to admit that she had a right to know whether he was doing her boss). She never questions the new limitations on the time they spend together (he can't very well show up at her place with takeout at eleven p.m. while Becky is waiting for him, after all); sometimes she even admonishes him to go home when they're working too late.

It's only Sweets who seems a little too interested in qualifying Becky's impact on their work relationship, and Booth is greatly pleased by the way Bones puts the boy in his place when he starts prodding. Their partnership is intact, much more so than it used to be before the year apart, and Booth doesn't feel sorry for Sweets in the slightest when Bones tells him in her iciest tone that he has no business sticking his nose into anything beyond that. When Sweets tries to insist, she reminds him calmly that _he_ gave up on his fiancée at the first sign of trouble, which means he's hardly in a position to offer her partner unsolicited relationship advice. Booth winces a bit in sympathy when Sweets turns pale, but he still squeezes her hand and whispers "Thanks there, Bones" into her ear when they walk out of Sweets' office. She smirks a little, and he hopes for Sweets' sake that the boy learned a lesson today.

* * *

Booth asks Becky to accompany him to the Christmas party at the Jeffersonian; he figures it's time she faces the Squint Squad. Becky isn't overly fond of detailed work-related discussions, and while that suited him just fine in Afghanistan, he figures he wants her to have at least some idea of what he actually does at his current job. He's pleased when she readily agrees, and he can tell that she makes quite an impression with the squints. He isn't surprised, of course – Becky is a people person, and easygoing enough to get along with almost everyone. Even Angela warms up to her when Becky ohhs and ahhs over her latest batch of baby pictures (he knows she isn't just doing it out of politeness, too, since Becky loves children), and after her third eggnog, Cam pinches his cheek and tells him that he and Becky look really cute together. Bones asks her questions about the customs of the Afghan population and seems genuinely interested in what Becky has to say.

Bones arrived at the party with a sleazy-looking guy whom she introduced as a colleague from the Archeology department, and who keeps pawing at her in a way she doesn't seem quite comfortable with. Booth isn't stupid enough to interfere, of course – he knows that she can take care of herself, and sure enough, halfway through the evening he spots the guy in a secluded corner with a clearly visible handprint on his left cheek while Bones stalks away with flashing eyes. Booth pulls her aside and tells her "Atta girl, Bones", which dissolves her angry frown and gets him the grin he was hoping for, even though it's accompanied by an eyeroll.

He can tell that Becky was quite taken with Bones, too – on the way home, she keeps bringing up their conversation about Becky's impressions of Afghanistan and Bones' recent work in Indonesia. "Dr. Brennan told me that it was one of the most fascinating projects she has ever worked on, but that she's still glad to be back at the Jeffersonian," she says, and Booth smiles to himself and thinks that he's glad too. "They liked you", he tells her, and Becky laughs and informs him she promised Hodgins to bring back a bug for him from each of her trips abroad from now on.

* * *

Life isn't all laughter and happiness, though, and he's forcefully reminded of that when Bones' sick little stepniece dies unexpectedly two days after Christmas. Bones doesn't talk about it much, but he knows her well enough to see that she's hurting – she was planning to spend the New Year with her brother and his family, but now she'll be making the trip for the funeral. Booth thinks about it for all of three seconds before he offers to accompany her, and even though she protests at first, he sees how relieved she is that she won't have to go by herself. He isn't worried that Becky might not understand – she knows that Bones is his friend, and that you don't leave friends to fend for themselves at such a difficult time.

He stands next to her when the small white coffin is lowered into the ground. She isn't crying, but he can tell that she's glad he's here even though she would never have asked him to come. She wouldn't have reached out towards him during the service either, but clung to him tightly as soon as he took her hand. She doesn't want to stay with her family afterwards, claiming that Russ and Amy already have her father staying with them and that she's no good at consoling grieving parents. So he takes her home and accompanies her back to her apartment, even though he hasn't set foot in it since the Gravedigger trial. Just as he expected, her brave façade finally crumbles in the safety of her own place, and he holds her and lets her cry into his shoulder until she finally pulls herself together and reminds him that he should be heading home.

It's almost midnight when he comes home, and Becky is asleep, but she wakes up when he slips into bed with her. He apologizes for his lateness and tells her he didn't want to leave Bones alone at a time like this, and she gives him a sleepy smile and murmurs, "You're a good man, Seeley Booth" as he leans in to kiss her goodnight. He lies awake for a long time after she's gone back to sleep; he can't help pondering how frighteningly short life can be and how he has almost begun to forget this after just a few months of love and laughter and happiness.

The next morning, he tells Becky that he wants to set a date for the wedding.

* * *

They settle on the first Saturday in March. Becky wants a small, private ceremony, claiming that neither of them has the time for extensive wedding preparations. Booth is fine with it, although he suspects that she just wants to avoid inviting her mother who married a man Becky despises after Becky's father died. In the end, her guest list consists of a few old friends and a cousin she's close with; on Booth's side, it'll be his son, his brother, and his grandfather plus Bones and the Squint Squad. He briefly considers inviting Sweets too, but then decides against it because he doesn't want to get his wedding dissected during their next therapy session.

Jared asks, "What's the rush, big brother? Got _another_ girl pregnant?" when Booth invites him, and Booth has to fight the all-too-familiar urge to smack him. Instead, he shuts him up by pointing out that he's already known Becky longer than Jared knew Padme when he married her. He asks Jared to stand up with him because in spite of everything, Jared is family and Booth still feels bad about missing his brother's wedding while he was in Afghanistan. Pops grumbles when Booth delivers his invitation over the phone, and he informs Booth that he'll probably get a heart attack from seeing his grandson at the altar with the wrong woman. Booth sighs and does his best not to let it get to him; he doesn't tell Becky about it, of course, but he ends up telling Bones who reminds him that Pops is an old man who's used to seeing things his way. She doesn't say anything anthropological about marriage when he invites her, either, and he's grateful for that.

* * *

They have their first huge row in January when Booth misses the appointment for his half-yearly post-tumor checkup. He's already had to reschedule twice because he's just too swamped with work, and even though Bones reminds him several times, he forgets the third one completely. Bones nags him for half an hour when she finds out, and he finally gets cranky and asks her to mind her own business. Her expression tightens, and he feels a bit guilty since he knows that she's only trying to look out for him, but every last shred of remorse evaporates when he comes home that evening and is faced with the fact that Bones called Becky and told her.

What follows is loud, and rather ugly; he's mad at Bones for ganging up on him with his fiancée, Becky is mad at him because she had to learn from his partner that he isn't taking care of his health like he should. "I thought you wanted me to be your wife, not your widow, Seeley," she snaps, and if he wasn't so angry he'd probably admit that she has a point. He _is_ angry, though, and slams the door behind him when he leaves for Bones' apartment to yell at her too. Bones doesn't yell back, but informs him coolly that he should stop behaving like a child if he doesn't like people treating him like one before she throws him out on his ass.

He cools off a little on his way home, and does a bit of groveling once he arrives since he realizes he let things get out of hand. He feels somewhat humiliated by Becky's insistence to accompany him to his new appointment, but in the end he's rather glad of her presence because his tumor-related experiences have left him with a deep-seated loathing of hospitals. He gets a clean bill of health, and things return to normal when he promises Becky he won't jeopardize their future together like that again. He means it, too, especially now that those thirty, forty, maybe fifty years of love and happiness are no longer just a dream, but a very real possibility.

* * *

Booth may have gotten the memo about taking better care of himself, but it seems that Bones hasn't. A year without having him around to be her gun has left her more reckless than she's been in a long time; she often reminds him of the woman he met seven years ago, the one who punched federal judges and shot murder suspects before they could set her on fire. More than once she ignores his admonition to hang back when things get too dangerous, and her luck finally runs out when they're chasing a suspect through the slush of early February in one of the seedier parts of the city. She's so intent on catching the guy that she pushes forward without checking the surroundings, and Booth notices a split second too late that there's a second guy lying in wait for them with a gun. It's too late to dive for cover, so he does the only thing he can: he barrels into her, pushing her to the ground and landing on top of her to get between her and the bullet. He's lucky that the guy is a lousy shot and only ends up nicking his left shoulder before Booth returns fire and finishes him.

It's probably the adrenaline, but at that moment there's none of the sickening feeling that usually accompanies each killing shot he fires. He tells himself the guy tried to kill Bones and got what was coming to him, and besides, he doesn't have time to worry about it since they still have their original perp to catch. However, their suspect ends up getting away, and Bones finally turns her attention towards Booth and notices his blood-soaked sleeve. He tells her it's nothing, but she wrestles the car keys from him and insists on driving him to the ER. He indulges her and lets the doctors patch him up; it's really not much of an injury, although it stings like a bitch.

Becky turns pale when she comes home in the evening and sees him with a fresh bandage, and although he assures her that he'll be right as rain in a couple of days, she seems more shaken by the incident than she should be. He knows it must seem like a cruel irony to her that he survived a year in a war zone without so much as a scratch on him only to get shot back home, but it's something she'll have to accept because no matter how much he loves her, he just isn't the kind of guy who could ever be happy at a desk job.

She clearly doesn't like it when he tells her just that, but she doesn't say anything about it and asks him instead to tell her what happened. He does, although he leaves out the part where he thought Bones should have let him go ahead, but Becky isn't stupid. "You took a bullet for her?" she asks in a strangely choked voice, and Booth has to explain again that partners _have_ to look out for each other and keep each other's backs during dangerous situations. Yet she still won't let him off the hook; she reminds him how he always told her to keep her head down in Afghanistan because he was worried about her, and he patiently reminds her that it's not the same because she's a civilian, while the risk of getting shot at was and is part of his job description. She asks him waspishly whether taking stupid risks is part of his job description too, and his own temper rises when he snaps back that he doesn't see anything stupid in trying to save his partner's life. He manages to calm down before things get out of hand, though; he knows she's just worried about him, and his slip-up with the doctor's appointment (which, okay, _was_ a stupid thing to do) must still be fresh on her mind.

She has calmed down too by the time they go to bed, and Booth does his best not to let her notice that he's in quite a bit of pain now that the shots they gave him at the hospital have worn off. His prior adventures with Vicodin have left him wary of painkillers, so he grits his teeth and resigns himself to a sleepless night while Becky dozes off next to him. It's already getting light outside when he finally falls asleep from sheer exhaustion, but at least it's Saturday, which means he'll get a chance to sleep in.

Becky isn't home when he wakes up shortly before noon, but it doesn't take long before she returns with a bag full of groceries. She still seems downcast, but Booth figures she'll get over it, and he's grateful that she doesn't mention the incident any more after asking whether his shoulder still hurts. Bones, too, acts a little subdued around him when he returns to work on Monday; he hopes it means that she's got a guilty conscience, which might make her think twice before putting herself in unnecessary danger in the future.

* * *

On Valentine's Day, Booth gives Bones a box of fancy Swiss chocolates. He's never given her a Valentine's Day present before because the holiday is too fraught with meaning, but he figures it's alright now that things are finally clear between them. Besides, he's got the feeling that she's still blaming herself for getting him injured, and he wants to make her understand that they're okay as far as he is concerned. Bones rolls her eyes at him and gives him a lecture on holiday-related consumerism, but she still opens the box while they're on their way to a crime scene, and between the two of them they've polished off most of the chocolates by the time they arrive.

In the evening, he returns home with a bunch of red roses, and Becky bursts into tears and tells him she's calling off the wedding.


	2. Chapter 2

**I'm really sorry that this story took me forever to finish – part 1 almost wrote itself in a rush of inspiration right after the season finale, but although I had the whole thing planned out from the beginning, part 2 put me through all kinds of trouble before I was able to wrestle it into shape. I hope it was worth the wait!**

* * *

_On Valentine's Day, Booth gives Bones a box of fancy Swiss chocolates. He's never given her a Valentine's Day present before because the holiday is too fraught with meaning, but he figures it's alright now that things are finally clear between them. Besides, he's got the feeling that she's still blaming herself for getting him injured, and he wants to make her understand that they're okay as far as he is concerned. Bones rolls her eyes at him and gives him a lecture on holiday-related consumerism, but she still opens the box while they're on their way to a crime scene, and between the two of them they've polished off most of the chocolates by the time they arrive._

_In the evening, he returns home with a bunch of red roses, and Becky bursts into tears and tells him she's calling off the wedding._

* * *

Unlike most people, Booth doesn't react with "this can't be happening" when something goes terribly wrong, probably because throughout his life he's seen too much of what _can_ happen. Yet he feels strangely numb when he listens to Becky talking – not incredulous, just oddly distant as if she were addressing someone he doesn't even know.

It's about Bones. It's the one thing he really gets from Becky's rambling; she talks too fast, like she wants to get this over with as quickly as possible, or perhaps just before she starts crying again (and he realizes only now that he's never seen her cry before). She says that she doesn't know half of things his partner knows about him, just like she had no idea that he still needs regular check-ups after the tumor (Booth remembers how she asked, "Are you okay now?" when he told her about it, how she accepted his "I'm fine" without further questions, and how grateful he was at the time that she did). She tells him that the Christmas party convinced her that he still isn't over Bones, and he can't for the life of him remember anything happening during that evening that could have made her think that. "I kept hoping it would get better," she says and reaches for his hand, but he pulls it away because he feels like she's accusing him of cheating on her.

Then she drops the bombshell and admits that she called Bones while he was sleeping in the morning after he got shot, and Booth recalls the way Bones wouldn't look him in the eyes the following Monday and has no idea what to think any more. He didn't even know Becky had Bones' number, but she just smiles sadly and reminds him it's still number one on his speed dial.

He listens with growing horror as Becky recounts the conversation: Bones' long-winded explanations about lines, about her inability to believe in love like Booth does, and how she felt he deserved better than her, that his friendship was too important to her to risk it for a relationship that could only end with him getting hurt. It's more than a little ironic, because he keeps getting hurt over and over again since that cursed night, and it doesn't look like it's going to end anytime soon.

Becky is struggling now; she tells him Bones insisted they were just friends and partners, and that she seemed shocked by Becky's claim that Booth still felt more than friendship for her. Booth can't muster up any surprise that _he_ gets no say in the matter; he has always hated the feeling of being a mere passenger in his own life because other people kept taking over the driver's seat, but that doesn't mean it isn't painfully familiar.

"She offered to leave," Becky says, tears spilling over her cheeks again. "She told me she won't stand in the way of your happiness, that she'll quit her job at the Jeffersonian and leave DC if I think she's getting between us. That's when I knew." Once more she reaches for his hand, and this time he lets her because he feels like he's been sucker-punched and is trying to get his breath back. "Seeley, I love you, but _I_ wouldn't give up my entire life like that for anyone's sake – not even yours."

Booth tries to get a word in, but she talks right over him, reminding him how just a few days ago he was willing to die for Bones without even thinking of _her_. Her hand on his is firm, but her voice trembles a little when she tells him he should be with the woman he loves most and who loves him most in the world, and that she no longer believes she's either.

He wants to make her understand that she's gotten it all wrong, but Becky dares him to look her in the eyes and swear that he's over Temperance Brennan, and Booth opens his mouth and closes it again because he has no idea what to answer. "I never lied to you, Becky," he finally says, because he needs her to believe at least that, and she smiles at him through her tears and tells him that she knows, but that it's time he stopped lying to himself.

* * *

Bones turns white as a sheet when he shows up at her doorstep close to midnight and tells her that Becky is leaving him. He knows he shouldn't have come here of all places, but Becky is packing her bags back at their apartment, and he couldn't bring himself to hang around and watch. Bones doesn't ask any questions, just ushers him onto the couch and places a glass of whiskey in front of him. She sits with him for a while, but it isn't lost on him how she keeps herself at a distance, never close enough to touch.

They don't talk – he doesn't want to talk, doesn't even want to think; all he wants is to sleep for a year and then wake up to a reality that makes some kind of sense. So she fetches him a blanket and a pillow and then lets him be, and he's grateful for that. Half a dozen wars have taught him to will his body to sleep if he really has to, and he does it now before his mind gets a chance to catch up with the last few hours.

* * *

That night he dreams of Afghanistan. It's not really a nightmare, not like the ones he used to have, but when he wakes up around two in the morning he's got the last image of the dream stills stuck in his mind – a long line of boys in Army fatigues walking along a dusty road, their grinning, carefree faces familiar, saluting him as they pass him by before disappearing in the distance.

Hardly any blood on _his_ hands this time; given the amount of cases they've closed since his return, he's probably worked off the entire year's tally by now. He doesn't know how the kids he trained to do the dirty work in his place will figure on his 'cosmic balance sheet', though, and he doubts he's going to find out this side of the grave.

Booth sits up and notices he's not sleepy in the least; on the contrary, he feels as if he's just caught up with reality for the first time in what seems like forever. Here he is, once more rolling with the punches, when he used to swear that he'd make his own destiny. It's what he told himself when he first talked back to his father, when he first enlisted, on his first day at Quantico. It was never smooth sailing, not by a long shot, but he always got his feet back on the ground and kept moving forward.

Yet all he seems to do these days is move in circles. He remembers sitting next to Teddy Parker's body and promising himself that he was done with the Army; he recalls the moment when he decided to stop gambling, only to lose the most important, and most reckless gamble of his life (that he let Sweets – Sweets! – of all people push him into) on the steps of the Hoover building.

And then there's Becky, who stepped into his life unbidden, and who's now walking out of it again because she believes she knows his heart better than he does. He's tempted to blame Bones, because it all keeps coming back to her, but he knows he can't – he may have lost control over his life once again, but he's not so out of it yet that he'll blame others for the mistakes he made. In the end, he was running just as much as she was, from her and his son and the life he built for himself, a life he could live without waking up bathed in cold sweat night after night, that gave him a greater purpose than shooting people from the shadows. While she left to find herself again, he has somehow managed to lose himself during the same time, and it's nobody's fault but his own.

He feels itchy all over when he thinks of how everyone treats him like some kind of war hero. He never felt heroic, not even when he first enlisted, but back then he didn't doubt he'd done the right thing, no matter how rough things got and how much he was struggling with the fallout. Afghanistan was different, and he's still not sure why – whether it's because he'd never have gone there if Bones hadn't run out on him, or because it's much harder to hold on to the belief that your superiors know what they're doing once you're pushing forty and have been around the block a few times. He did what he'd always done, focused on the task at hand and let others worry about the big picture, but it had never been this difficult, not when he couldn't help asking himself whether anything he did would make the slightest difference in this fucking hellhole of a fucking country.

The sudden spike of anger comes out of nowhere; he can't even remember the last time he's been truly angry. For a long time, he did his best not to feel anything for fear what would happen if he did, and then there was Becky who drew in all his feelings and made them safe again. He _is_ getting angry now, though – at those who kept yanking his chain for their own purposes, at himself for allowing it and for laying all the shit he couldn't deal with at Becky's feet just because she was willing to put up with it. She deserved better than to become his fucking sedative, and now he won't even get a chance to make it up to her because she'll be gone in the morning.

That's when he notices Bones standing in the open door of her bedroom.

* * *

She sits down next to him, looking impossibly young in striped pajamas, and asks why Becky is leaving. Booth doesn't meet her eyes when he reminds her bluntly that she already knows.

She falls silent, her hands twisting the hem of her pajama jacket; all she says at long last in a strangely small voice that reminds him of her "I know" during _that_ night is, "It's not fair." It's an absurd statement coming from the queen of rationality, but she doesn't seem to care when he points it out. Instead, she asks whether Becky told him that she offered to leave.

He nods, but doesn't explain the impact her offer had (because you just don't do something like that for someone you don't love – he doesn't let himself ponder the implications, he seriously can't deal with this now) and forces himself to look at her, _really_ look at her instead. She's pale, and there are lines between her eyebrows and at the corners of her mouth he can't remember ever seeing before.

"I missed you so much, Booth."

It's so totally out of the blue that he can only stare at her, and it's probably the surprise that makes him say the first thing that comes to his mind. "So much that you didn't even write once."

It sounds harsher than he intended, but damn, it almost killed him during those hellish first months that she couldn't be bothered to write him a single fucking email. She keeps plucking at her pajamas and babbles about boundaries, and her ability to function on her own, and how she was afraid of making things harder for him, and finally about waiting for a message from him that would tell her whether he even wanted to hear from her.

_Great, just great_. He was stuck in the middle of a nightmare, dying for a word from her, and it never came because she tried to take her cues from him, just like she always did when it came to stuff that required anything like people skills. All his own reasons for not writing made sense at the time – he didn't want to crowd her, didn't want to scare her even further away from him, and maybe there was a tiny part of him that hoped she'd be the one to cave first. Which resulted in a year of total silence because each of them thought the other one wanted it that way.

Bones isn't done, though; she keeps talking in her science voice, the one she always uses when she tries to rationalize things that hit a bit too close to home. She talks of worrying about him getting killed or blown up or kidnapped, of feeling guilty for letting him go, of how she missed working and laughing and fighting with him, how she would sometimes talk to him when it all got too much – "I know it's irrational because you couldn't hear me, but I thought that you would probably tell me to do it anyway because it would make me feel better, and it did" – and how she stopped when she remembered she'd once promised that she would talk to him like that if he died.

She tells him she thought of him constantly, and he wants to laugh at the cruel irony of it because at the same time, he was doing his best to think of her as little as possible. In the end, he fell back on the tried and tested technique of not thinking at all when it wasn't necessary (he once told Becky it was a technique the Army encouraged when she wanted to discuss politics with him during one of their first dates), which wasn't all that hard considering the alternatives. Before Becky, there were days when he felt so numb inside that he even found it hard to pray.

_Before Becky._ It really hits him then that it's now _after Becky_, that the brighter future he saw ahead of him has once more slipped from his grasp. Moving in circles again – another Rebecca who decided she couldn't spend her life with him.

"I'm scared, Bones." He knows it has nothing to do with anything she just told him, but the words need to get out before he's choking on them. It may be pathetic, but right now he's done pretending. "I'm scared that I'll end up alone because nobody's ever going to love me."

She gives him a strange look and tentatively puts her hand on his shoulder. A moment from what feels like a lifetime ago – _Hey, I get scared and I'll hug you_ – flashes through his mind, and he lets himself lean into the touch just a little. She smiles and says in that matter-of-fact tone she has, "_I_ love you, Booth."

* * *

He stares at her; his mind is strangely blank, and he hopes it remains that way for a while because he really doesn't want to feel the impact of her words anytime soon. There was a time when he would have given his right arm to hear her say them, but not like this, not like she's trying to comfort him or reassure him or whatever the hell she thinks she's doing.

For once, she seems to understand. "I know that's not what you meant, but – you're not alone."

That, coming from the woman who put half the world between them when he told her what he felt for her, brings him out of his stupor. The question he's suddenly dying to ask her may sound like a non sequitur, but he has to know, and so he asks her what she would wish for if she could have anything in the world, no matter how impossible. She tenses all over and withdraws her hand from his shoulder before she answers that in such a hypothetical case, she would wish that she'd never met him.

Even she can't miss his gutted expression, because she keeps talking, the former steadiness gone from her voice. It sounds like she's rattling off a list that she composed long ago, of things she's done to him – rejecting him because she's not the kind of woman he needs her to be, letting him go back to war because she was too caught up in her own panic to consider what it would do to him ("I was so worried about your safety, and I still didn't see how close I came to bringing about what I feared most"), and finally ruining his relationship with the woman who made him happy ("I tried – I tried so hard, Booth, I really wanted to do everything I could to make things work out for you").

His mind is reeling; he has no idea what she's trying to tell him, what she wants of him now, and in the end, he cuts her off to ask her just that.

She gives him a puzzled look and states, as if it were the most logical thing in the world, that she wants him to be happy. He almost flies in her face, because he's sick of people who claim that they have only his happiness in mind while they stomp all over his heart, and reminds her that she's not Mother Teresa and that she's allowed to wish for things for herself too.

That gives her pause, and she falls silent for a long time before she tells him that she wishes he'll one day ask her the same question again he asked on the steps of the Hoover building, because this time her answer would be different.

Booth buries his face in his hands and thinks of circles, and the definition of insanity.

She asks him cautiously whether he would prefer if she were no longer in his life so that he can truly move on, because it's becoming obvious that he won't be able to do it while she's around. At this, he finally looks at her again – to everyone else, she would appear calm and composed, but he knows her better than that.

"I can't lose you too, Bones." He has no idea whether he's breaking out of the circle or just starting another round, but there are some things that are constant (like the fact that the center must hold), and he knows it's time to put his cards on the table. "No matter what happens, my life is better for having you in it."

She takes a deep, shaky breath, and then her arms are around him, and he leans into her and lets the feeling of homecoming wash over him. It doesn't take away the pain, or the heartbreak, but her promise _You're not alone_ is still fresh on his mind, and it makes things a little more bearable.

"About everything else, Bones," he says into her hair, "it's all a bit much at the moment – I guess I can only take things one day at a time right now."

She looks up to give him a watery smile and tells him it's a concept she's far more comfortable with than the idea of thirty, or forty, or fifty years, because she prefers to give promises she knows she can keep.

* * *

Booth wakes at the crack of dawn with the inside of his mouth tasting like old socks and a terrible crick in his neck. It takes him a moment to get his bearings; he's on Bones' couch with his cheek pillowed on her thigh. He raises his head and winces at the protest from his abused muscles, and also at the look of Bones who is curled up in a half-upright position against the armrest of the couch. She must be aching all over, but she still gives him a smile and asks him what he's going to do now.

Booth sits up and stretches, trying to work out the kinks in his back, to give himself time to think about the answer. One day at a time, he reminds himself and decides he's going to start looking for a new apartment. His lease isn't up for another six months, and he can hardly afford paying double rent, but there's no way he'll keep living in a place that is filled with nothing but silence and memories and unfulfilled dreams.

Again she understands, because she tells him he's welcome to stay in her guestroom in the meantime. Over breakfast, she offers to come with him and help him get the stuff he needs from the apartment, and Booth thinks of _you're not alone_ again and finds that it's a little easier to breathe.

They end up clearing out the entire apartment. Becky took only her personal belongings, but left everything behind that they bought since they moved in, and Booth calls in sick at work because he wants to get it all over with so he won't ever have to set foot into the place again. Bones informs Cam and then leaves to get some packing cases, giving him time to go through everything and decide what to take with him.

When he's done he's got two suitcases for now and a few boxes that will go into the storage room in Bones' building. It's depressingly little, but he is no more going to keep the stuff that was intended for a shared life than Becky did. He and Bones spend most of the day putting everything away in the packing cases, and Bones promises to take care of getting them out of the apartment. Booth merely says "thanks, Bones" and doesn't tell her what she's supposed to do with them because he has no idea and doesn't want to think about it.

Bones salvages the "Cocky" belt buckle from one of the cases and frowns when he doesn't want it. He stopped wearing it because of Becky's merciless teasing (although she kept buying him ties in colors that even he found eye-watering to make up for it), and he hasn't really felt all that cocky in a long time anyway. Bones refuses to leave it behind, though; she puts it in her pocket and tells him she'll keep it safe for him until he wants it back, and Booth gives in on the condition that she won't tell Sweets because he doesn't even want to imagine what the kid would do with that. Bones promises with a grin and then gets on the phone to order pizza, and for a brief moment, the world feels almost normal again.

* * *

Reality creeps back in at night when he finds himself in an unfamiliar bed that smells of Bones' fabric softener. He's deathly tired and aching all over, but he can't seem to fall asleep. Usually he'd get up and watch TV until he passes out on the couch, but this is Bones' place, and although she owns a TV these days he doesn't feel comfortable taking over her living space like that.

He considers commandeering one of her anthropology books, because that will definitely put him to sleep, when she knocks on the guest room door. She's wearing those girly striped PJs again, and from the look on her face she's not entirely certain what she's doing here. She asks if he misses Becky, and Booth has to smile a little because it's such a Bones question – blunt and just a bit tactless, but honest and from the heart.

He doesn't answer (really, what does she expect him to say?); Sweets will start poking and prodding eventually, but Booth isn't planning to confess that more than everything else, he's grieving for the future he and Becky were imagining together because now he won't ever get the chance to find out whether it could have been more than a dream.

Instead he pats his bedside invitingly, and Bones sits down and bites her lip as if debating with herself whether she should say what's on her mind. At last, she admits that she heard him tossing and turning and asks if he wants her to sit with him until he's asleep.

Booth's first instinct is to refuse because seriously, how pathetic can you get? But then he remembers that this is Bones, who knows nothing about people but won't be fooled by alpha-male posturing, who has seen him at his lowest and has let him see her with all her defenses down too. Perhaps he's entitled to a moment of weakness after all the crap he's been through, and even if he isn't he knows she won't hold it against him.

She remains perched on the edge of his bed, her hand on his, and Booth closes his eyes and listens to the sound of her soft breathing in the darkness. He's just about to drift off when she gets up and brushes a feather-light kiss on his forehead before tiptoeing out of the room, and the last thing on his mind as he falls asleep is the irony that a kiss from Temperance Brennan should feel like a benediction.

_One day at a time._

_You're not alone._

* * *

This is when the camera starts zooming out, telling you that you're getting to the end of the story. You see mornings in the kitchen and evenings in front of the TV, boundaries tested and comfort zones redefined, and old familiarity growing into something new. You see boxes retrieved from the storage room, and "stay for a while" slowly changing into "stay". You get glimpses of healing and scarring and fresh bleeding, and of sorrow and laughter so close together that it's sometimes hard to tell them apart.

You see a kiss under the summer sky, and from a distance you can just make out two people curled up in bed together on a cold winter night, their bodies so closely intertwined that you can't tell where the one ends and the other begins.

Those may be glimpses of the future, or maybe just dreams, but nothing happens unless first a dream, and although theirs hasn't always been a happy story, what really matters is that it ends like one.

With a beginning.


End file.
